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In Christian and Mediæval Times: Potrimpos

Naturally this practice of magic by means of wax extended far beyond the churchly bounds, and we learn that the Slavic people used it in divination. The priests of the god Potrimpos, who was the fortune-bringer in war as in In Christian and Mediæval Times 333 peace, the dispenser of the fruitfulness of the fields, and all household good-fortune, prophesied by means of figures formed by melted wax poured upon water.

A story is told of a mother who went to the high-priest of Potrimpos to learn the whereabouts of her absent son, and was told that he had been shipwrecked, as the wax poured upon the water took the form of a wrecked ship and of a swimming man.

It is said that the disease known as " ignis sacer," sacred fire, or pestilential erysipelas, was cured by means of wax dissolved in water.

Very naturally the magic art connected with wax images found its way to many countries, and even as far West as Scotland we learn of its currency among the people. It seems that the Scottish king, Duff, having shown signs of wasting away, his counsellors suspected magic. A search was instituted and an old woman was finally discovered who was accused of having bound a waxen image of the king to the spit and turned it about before the fire. Questioned upon the rack, the reputed sorceress confessed that she had intended the death of the king, which would have followed in a few days. As a punishment the sorceress was burned with her wax image, whereupon the king recovered. -- The wax of young bees was considered particularly powerful in magic, and we are told of a sorceress who possessed an image of such virgin wax in which all the members were distorted excepting one rib she believing that according to Genesis ii. 21, 22, "And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof: and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man," she too could from this rib create more images potent for harm.

The sorceress' own life was bound up in this image, and when it was melted before a slow fire she disappeared at the same time.

The sacred candles were stolen from the churches for the unholy purposes of magic, as were also the consecrated wafers and the bones of the dead, both of which were conceived to possess exceptional power in witchcraft. Against these sacrilegious misdemeanors the church interfered with all its power, and Pope Gregory IX. issued in 1233 a special bull wherein every one implicated in these magic arts was threatened with eternal damnation, and others did the same.

The "Ackersegen" or blessing of the field seems to be the result of a mixture of pagan and mediæval superstitions. We know the Greeks and Latins made offerings to the deities of the fields and orchards and that upon these occasions a trench was often dug and into it poured meal, milk, honey and wine or mead.

Even during the middle ages a similar custom was followed in some places when at the ploughing of the fields sacrificial rites were observed in which milk, meal and honey were offered.

There was later a special ceremony devised for those fields supposed to have been blighted by magic.

From the four corners of the field sods must be cut; oil, honey, the milk of all cattle, the boughs of all trees, particularly of oaks and beeches, all herbs excepting burdocks, must be laid upon the sods and sprinkled with holy water. The sods must then be taken to the church, the green side turned towards the altar, and four masses read over them. They must then be returned to the field before sunset, a blessing pronounced over them, unknown seeds bought of a mendicant placed upon the plough, another blessing pronounced and the first furrow ploughed. All kinds of flour In Christian and Mediæval Times 335 kneaded into a loaf with milk must then be laid in the furrow and another blessing pronounced. At one end of the furrow the ploughman must find a jar of honey, at the other end a jar of milk.